MakeUseOf

Windows is quietly reserving gigabytes of your RAM — here’s how to get it back

Oluwademilade Afolabi — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 23:00:18 GMT

I did the thing every Windows user eventually does after a random stutter and opened Task Manager, ready to judge a wall of numbers I only half trusted. That's when I realized I had been reading the memory page wrong. Before I had launched anything heavy, several gigabytes of my 16GB of RAM were already marked as in use, even though nothing was rendering, compiling, exporting, or melting the CPU in the background.

Thunderbolt 5 finally makes eGPUs great — but it has one big, boring problem

Dipan Saha — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 22:30:19 GMT

eGPUs have always suffered from bandwidth limitations, and those four PCIe lanes just aren’t enough. Compared to a desktop, there is some very noticeable loss in performance, something not even Oculink can fix.

I turned off Windows Fast Startup and my boot time barely changed — but 3 persistent bugs disappeared

Afam Onyimadu — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 22:00:19 GMT

Windows' Fast Startup is one of the best examples of a disruptive setting. It's enabled by default and was the cause of my Linux partition not mounting, my dock randomly disconnecting, and an update getting stuck in a loop. Disabling it had no real noticeable impact on startup times, but it fixed all three seemingly unrelated issues. It's time to start paying attention to this setting.

The holy grail of retro gaming models could be in your attic, and it solves a major console issue

Sara Heritage — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 20:12:31 GMT

The PlayStation 3 changed the game when it dropped in 2006. It brought us Blu-ray, a beefy Cell processor, and built-in Wi-Fi. For gaming fans and preservationists, it was especially momentous; the earliest PS3 models—especially the iconic “Fat” CECHA launch units—offered true hardware-level backwards compatibility with both PS1 and PS2 games, meaning a single machine could access almost every PlayStation game released up to that point.

I added hi-res audio to my Windows 11 PC for under $6, and my music finally sounds right

Gavin Phillips — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 19:35:24 GMT

I've owned various headphones and earbuds over the years with hi-res LDAC codec support. The only problem is that Windows 11 doesn't support LDAC, which means I invariably connect to my phone, which does, but then it becomes a problem playing audio from my PC.

I cleaned up Windows credentials and found logins I forgot existed

Oluwademilade Afolabi — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 19:30:18 GMT

Credential Manager is one of those Windows corners I only remember when something breaks. A shared folder refuses to connect, an app keeps asking for a password it already knows, or Windows insists on using the wrong account with impressive confidence.

I left the Play Store for a free open-source app store and never looked back

Sagar Naresh — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 18:00:18 GMT

When you purchase a new phone, you set it up (basically linking everything to Google) and head over to the Google Play Store to get your favorite apps. But the fact is that it isn’t the only app store for Android phone users to get apps. There are so many third-party open-source apps that are so good that Google should’ve built them into Android. And let me tell you, the list of such apps is quite long.

Ethernet cables have two types and only one is worth running through your walls

Digvijay Kumar — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 16:30:19 GMT

Running Ethernet through walls isn’t like replacing a USB cable or swapping a patch lead under your desk. Once the cable disappears behind drywall, changing it later means fishing a new line through studs, ceilings, or conduit all over again. DIY installers typically spend time comparing Cat5e, Cat6, and Cat6a before buying, assuming that’s the decision that matters most. But there’s another specification most folks rarely think to check before pulling an Ethernet cable through their walls: whether to use solid-core or stranded cable.

I disabled Google Play Services location tracking, and yes, apps still work fine

Rob LeFebvre — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 16:00:19 GMT

I went looking for a switch that lets you cut Google Play Services out of your phone's location tracking, expecting a simple toggle buried somewhere in an app permissions screen. I figured it'd be the same process as revoking camera or microphone access from any other app. Android 17, though, had a different plan, and it took me a few wrong turns through the settings menus before I found the control that actually did something measurable.

YouTube keeps taking away your dislikes, and the reason isn't what you think

Dan Selcke — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 15:30:18 GMT

YouTube added "thumbs up" and "thumbs down" buttons on videos starting in 2010. Over the next decade, these "like" and "dislike" buttons became staples of the platform, but YouTube started to mess with them in 2021, when they removed the ability to see how many dislikes a given video had gotten.